Fallon businesses report good sales numbers

Fallon had a successful holiday shopping season as well as the rest of the country with high numbers and success that leaves hope the Christmas season will be just as great.

According to shopping analytics firm ShopperTrak, Thanksgiving and Black Friday combined brought in an estimated $12.3 billion in sales. Thanksgiving Day traffic grew 27 percent as nearly one-third of shoppers headed to stores on the holiday, according to the National Retail Federation.

Since Thanksgiving and Black Friday fell a week later in the season this year, it encouraged stores to push pre-Black Friday deals early.

Not only were Black Friday deals successful, but also were Small Business Saturday sales.

“At independent, locally owned businesses, 52 percent of what you spend stays right in your community, supporting local organizations and services,” according to the American Booksellers Association Indie Impact Study Series survey by Civic Economics.

When consumers support small businesses it enables those businesses to create more jobs, that helps the economy and strengthens and revitalizes the community.

National and local businesses faired well this holiday season.

Walmart management could not discuss about how the giant retailer faired but one manager said the local Walmart sold $450,000 worth of merchandise and packed the parking lot Thursday.

Walmart also reported good sales on Cyber Monday from its corporate office. The five-day period from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday is the highest five-day stretch in online sales for the retailer to date, and Walmart.com processed more than one billion page views during that period.

“We had an all-time record sales day yesterday as the momentum we saw on Thanksgiving carried through to Cyber Monday,” said Joel Anderson, president and CEO, Walmart.com U.S. “We’re committed to giving our customers the best savings on the gifts they want most this holiday season, and we’re offering 200 online specials every day through Friday so customers can make the most of their budgets.”

Among the big-selling items were

Big R general manager Bret Rogers had nothing but positive feed back from Black Friday sales.

“Our sales were really good this year,” said Rogers. “Our apparel department was a huge success since we had a wide selection of items.”

The Fallon Sears store didn’t fare as well as it did last year. Manager Bob Clay said the store brought in 75 percent of last years earnings, having a loss of 25 percent.

“I’m not sure what happened but it could have been from residents traveling to Carson City or Reno,” said Clay.

GameStop had a great outcome as well. One of the store employees said that it was busy all day. He said the store beat last year’s numbers and sold out of PlayStation 4 (PS4) and Xbox Ones without a hitch.

Too Cute Totes, His Inspirations and Blush Skin Spa and Boutique had a wonderful outcome said owner of His Inspirations Wende Hook.

“A lot of shoppers took advantage of the 30 percent off from 6-10 a.m., though, we were busy all day,” said Hook. “We did much better than last year.”

Cobblestone Corner owner Dee Dee Ferguson said the store did very well on Black Friday and Small Business Saturday.

Red Zinnia had a great Small Business Saturday but didn’t fare so well with Black Friday.

“Shoppers came in on Friday more for the wine tasting than for the sale,” said Darla Luiz. “However, Saturday we were very busy and did really well.”

Just Country Friends owner Karen Laca said that their store did wonderful over the shopping holiday.

“We had a lot of shoppers stop in,” said Laca. “We made about five percent more than last year.”